Writer’s Rites
No, that is not a misspelling.
So, recently, there was a big brouhaha over at BoingBoing because Cory Doctorow posted an ultra-short story by Ursula K. LeGuin. She objected, but she did so via a third party that happened to be in Cory’s twitfilter, so he didn’t know she objected. When it was all finally sorted out, Cory offered an apology to Ms. LeGuin, which she accepted. Along the way, however, one of the Grand Old Gentlemen of science-fiction, as well as a brilliant author, Jerry Pournelle got involved. Now, I may not agree with his politics, or many other things, but at one point in my life, I loved his writing. He is also a collaborator with another of my favorite authors, Larry Niven.
In any case, before the aforementioned brouhaha, I had not visited Mr. Pournelle’s website, so, while chasing a couple of links, I had a look around. Well, he mentioned something that he and Mr. Niven apparently learned from a third brilliant science-fiction writer, Steven Barnes, called the Five Tibetean Rites. Sometime in the unknown past, Mr. Barnes found for these Elder Statesmen of science-fiction a series of exercises meant to increase general health and energy. It is rumored that Mr. Niven can manage an amazing twenty-one repititions of these exercises and finds them to be quite invigorating. Naturally, as I am quite interested in imporving my health these days, I was intrigued. They don’t seem too hard, until you read the suggestions about how many times to repeat the motion.
Well, I guess, like so many things, we’ll just have to see.
